Description of the ambulance services participating in the Aus‐ROC Australian and New Zealand out‐of‐hospital cardiac arrest Epistry

Abstract

There is marked variation between ambulance services currently participating in the Aus-ROC Australian and New Zealand OHCA Epistry with respect to workforce characteristics and key variable definitions. This variation between ambulance services might account for a proportion of the regional variation in survival of OHCA.

Regional variation in the characteristics, incidence and outcomes of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in Australia and New Zealand: Results from the Aus-ROC Epistry

“…The ambulance services participating in the Aus-ROC Epistry have been described previously [16]. Clinical management of OHCA was noted to be similar across ambulance services, and follow the 2015 Australian and New Zealand Committee on Resuscitation (ANZCOR) resuscitation guidelines which are co-badged by both the Australian Resuscitation Council (ARC) and the New Zealand Resuscitation Council (NZRC) [17,18].…”

Oxygen titration after resuscitation from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: A multi-centre, randomised controlled pilot study (the EXACT pilot trial)

“…The ambulance services are detailed elsewhere (11), however there were differences between the two ambulance services in airway management at the time of this study. At Ambulance Victoria, SGAs are used during the arrest and are replaced by endotracheal tubes (ETT) either during CPR or soon after ROSC is achieved.…”

Incidence and outcomes of out‐of‐hospital cardiac arrest: A New Zealand perspective

“…However, the gold standard in survival from OHCA is that reported by King County in the USA, which had a rate of 21% survival in 2013 . Equally as important as knowledge of the differences in survival is understanding the similarities and differences between the services that are being compared . St John New Zealand is a contributor to the Australian and New Zealand Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium (Aus‐ROC); and through participation in Aus‐ROC it is anticipated that this collaboration will lead to a greater understanding of factors that may account for regional variances between services …”

“…Age (16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35) years relative to those older than 76 years), ethnicity (European and Other relative to M aori or Pacific Peoples), witnessed status (EMS and bystanderwitnessed relative to unwitnessed), arresting rhythm (shockable relative to non-shockable), aetiology (presumed cardiac relative to non-cardiac), arrest location (public relative to home and aged care facilities, healthcare facilities relative to public) and response times (3 min or less relative to those longer than 10 min) were associated with survival to 30 days in logistic models (Table 4).…”

“…25 St John New Zealand is a contributor to the Australian and New Zealand Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium (Aus-ROC); and through participation in Aus-ROC it is anticipated that this collaboration will lead to a greater understanding of factors that may account for regional variances between services. 25 One of the key links in the chain of survival is early CPR. 26 Rates of bystander CPR have been reported internationally between 45% and 73%.…”